ENJOYING SOLITUDE AND OTHER PEOPLE ■ 1 85When a family has a common purpose and open channels of
communication, when it provides gradually expanding opportunities for
action in a setting of trust, then life in it becomes an enjoyable flow
activity. Its members will spontaneously focus their attention on the
group relationship, and to a certain extent forget their individual selves,
their divergent goals, for the sake of experiencing the joy of belonging
to a more complex system that joins separate consciousnesses in a
unified goal.
One of the most basic delusions of our time is that home life takes
care of itself naturally, and that the best strategy for dealing with it is
to relax and let it take its course. Men especially like to comfort them
selves with this notion. They know how hard it is to succeed on the job,
how much effort they have to put into their careers. So at home they
just want to unwind, and feel that any serious demand from the family
is unwarranted. They often have an almost superstitious faith in the
integrity of the home. Only when it is too late—when the wife has
become dependent on alcohol, when the children have turned into cold
strangers—do many men wake up to the fact that the family, like any
other joint enterprise, needs constant investments of psychic energy to
assure its existence.
To play the trumpet well, a musician cannot let more than a few
days pass without practicing. An athlete who does not run regularly will
soon be out of shape, and will no longer enjoy running. Any manager
knows that his company will start falling apart if his attention wanders.
In each case, without concentration, a complex activity breaks down
into chaos. Why should the family be different? Unconditional accept
ance, the complete trust family members ought to have for one another,
is meaningful only when it is accompanied by an unstinting investment
of attention. Otherwise it is just an empty gesture, a-hypocritical pre
tense indistinguishable from disinterest.
Enjoying Friends
“The worst solitude,” wrote Sir Francis Bacon, “is to be destitute of
sincere friendship.” Compared to familial relationships, friendships are
much easier to enjoy. We can choose our friends, and usually do so, on
the basis of common interests and complementary goals. We need not
change ourselves to be with friends; they reinforce our sense of self
instead of trying to transform it. While at home there are many boring
things we have to accept, like taking out the garbage and raking up
leaves, with friends we can concentrate on things that are “fun.”